Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
In December, 1944, food provisions have become increasingly scarce because of the war, and even the restaurant is struggling. One day Kim Changho has a talk with Sunja and Kyunghee, explaining that the restaurant will close tomorrow. He asks Kyunghee to accompany him to the market. While they’re gone, someone unexpectedly enters the restaurant. It’s Hansu. Sunja asks him what he’s doing there, and almost faints when Hansu tells her, “This is my restaurant. Kim Changho works for me.”
Years after they’ve last been in contact, Hansu reappears in Sunja’s life—only he’s never really left. Sunja is shocked to learn that after making a concerted effort to forget him, she’s really been working for him all along.
Themes
Hansu had tracked down Sunja over ten years ago after she pawned the gold pocket watch. He created the restaurant job for her after Isak was jailed. He also employs the moneylender who’d loaned Yoseb money, as his father-in-law is one of the most powerful moneylenders in Japan. He tells Sunja that she and her family must flee Osaka immediately, since, contrary to propaganda, Japan is losing the war, and the Americans will start bombing the city soon.
Hansu has been moving in the background of Sunja’s life ever since she moved to Japan, watching her and silently intervening to provide for her needs, since she’d rejected his direct help. The pawned watch served as a kind of talisman, summoning him back into her life when she thought she was getting rid of his memory for good. Hansu’s involvement explains the almost impossibly good deal Sunja and Kyunghee got from Kim Changho, but his links to moneylending cast a bit of a dark shadow over everything, too.
Themes
Sunja feels angry, realizing that Hansu has followed her like an invisible, “watchful shadow” all these years. She also realizes that he’s worried about Noa’s survival. Hansu tells her she can’t waste this opportunity to flee, since “the world can go to hell, but you need to protect your sons.” With Kim, she and her family can live with and work for a sweet potato farmer in the country. He tells her to be ready to leave that night and to leave everyone else if she has to.
Sunja is understandably upset. Hansu’s hovering presence doesn’t detract from her own initiative as a saleswoman, but she can’t help feeling manipulated at the same time. She realizes that no matter what she does, their shared connection to Noa—Hansu’s only son—will be a lasting bond between them. With Isak gone, Sunja’s sons are both her greatest weakness and her strength, and now she realizes she’ll do anything, even accept help from Hansu, to ensure they survive.
Themes
